


It Isn't Real.

by hana_hana



Category: IT - Stephen King, IT Chapter 2, IT: Chapter 2
Genre: IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Reddie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 14:37:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20695190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hana_hana/pseuds/hana_hana
Summary: In IT: Chapter Two (2019), Richie gets deadlight-ed. What does he see? More importantly, who does he see?This is a short-fic about what Richie Tozier sees while in a trance. It includes BIG REDDIE.badly written fic by a theorist- @kkeberos on instagram.





	It Isn't Real.

Taking one step forward, he dared himself to make the first move. Mike was in the claws of the monstrous clown and there was only one way to distract him—the one way he knew how.

“Hey, fuck face!” He shouts, stepping up and glancing at Mike as the clown releases him, throwing him against the rigid stone walls. Richie could only imagine how his spine would bruise. Pennywise’s legs scuttled as he turned to face him, face enlarged, terrifying enough to send a violent shiver through Richie’s entire body.

Without a second thought, he grabs the rock he eyed not long ago that sat only a foot away and faces the clown head-on. This was his moment.

“You want to play truth or dare?” His glasses glare in the blinking light, the three blinding white orbs flickering enough to make him nauseous, or maybe it was the monstrosity standing before him that did that. Richie swallows the fear and makes his move, “Here’s a truth, you’re a sloppy bitch!” He grips the flashlight in his left hand, feeling the fear shift into pure adrenaline.

Pennywise begins to lurch forward, legs lifting off the ground threateningly. The others can see him from afar, Richie’s plan was working somehow, and they knew it would give them enough time. Just enough.

“Yeah, that’s right! You wanna dance? Let’s dance!” Richie bounces the rock in his right, swinging back his arm while letting out his last few words, “Yippee-ki-yay motherfuc—“ golden lights corrupt his vision and Richie can feel his body go slack and his blood run cold. Beyond the blinding light was a voice, calling out to him without a form besides the distant shadow of a figure.

“Richie.”

The voice is clear to him now. Familiarity warms his chest, he knows this voice. His closest friend, his greatest rival, his first true family, and the man he… the one he cared for more than he cared for himself. Richie comes to, eyes opening wide to reveal Eddie above him, hands beneath his arms and eyes wide with concern.

“Richie!”

The shock fades away as he can see the clear look in the man’s face, pride, and relief. Eddie calls out to him but all he can hear clearly is his heart beating. Eddie never once looks away from Richie’s eyes. He can hear bits of Eddie’s sentences, but his face shows it all. His mouth moves fast and his hands are shaking, he did it.

“I think I got him, man,” Eddie says, this time he can hear him clearly. “I did! I think I killed him for real—“ Eddie’s name is on the tip of Richie’s tongue when crimson splashes into his face. When Richie groans, it seeps into his tongue and he tastes the metallic liquid, it’s clear to him what it is.

Blood.

Eddie’s blood.

He can hear the shriek of fear and terror that leaves Beverly’s throat but he can’t bring himself to say anything, shock locking his body into a trance. His arms locked beside him, Eddie’s name barely passing his gritting teeth. Blood obscured his vision but the view of Eddie being lifted from him is as clear as day.

“Richie…”

He blinks his eyes for only a moment, and the vision is gone, returned to the golden glow only to replay once more what he saw. Eddie above him, hands below, straddling his body with an expression of both concern and excitement. Time fails itself and everything is slow, one-hundred times slower.

‘I saw how everyone died,’ he remembers Beverly saying, he could hear her voice from a mile away when she said so, repeating to herself that it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real, and as Bev said, it was the clown. He was doing it. He was putting these thoughts into her head, and now they’re in his, but he knew it wasn’t real.

That wasn’t real.

“Richie!” Eddie shouts, gaining the disheveled man’s attention as he does. But his words mean nothing to Richie, he’s heard it once before, and this time he will get to hear it all. It wasn’t real. But now, all he can see is Eddie. Only Eds. “I think I got him, man!”

Richie can feel the warmth in his chest but the coldness of whatever vision he was put into still stuck, lingering pins and needles that brought the feeling of Eddie’s warm blood on his face back into his mind. But he says it again, it wasn’t real. It will never be real.

Eddie looks back frantically, and despite his cloudy eyes Richie can still see the figure of an impaled, deathly-looking clown, slumped into a motionless blob of white and ginger tufts. He reminds himself, over and over again, staring at the twitching claw of the beast. It wasn’t real.

“I did!” Eddie’s excitement fills the air once more, “I think I killed him for real—“

He blinks for only a moment when it began. Warm liquid. It splashes against his chest and chin, gracing the tip of his tongue as metallic bile fills his throat. His glasses are smudged with dark red, the lights illuminating the color until it becomes near cartoonish to him. A shrill scream echoes throughout the cave but he still can’t bring himself to move even an inch. All the man can do is gasp.

Richie feels Eddie begin to lift from him, torn away, his best friend. Eddie’s trembling hands leave his sides and find their way to his own impaled torso where the edge of an enormous claw protruded, blood dripping down and staining his shirt.

His voice is fragile and delicate, breaking, “Richie…” Full of fear and confusion, Eddie stares at the one man he knew most. The one he talked to on rainy days, the one who crashed at his house when his parents locked the doors, the one who comforted him during his darkest of times and the man he held closer than any girlfriend or wife he could hold. The man he trusted more than anything. “Rich.”

Blood spills from his mouth and onto Richie’s hands, but the man can’t move. Richie repeats to himself his words of comfort, it isn’t real. This isn’t real, it wasn’t, and Eddie was okay. It couldn’t be real because if he closed his eyes, if he closed them for only a second, he would be transported to the same thing once again. He knew that he was still in that vision, he had to be because this wasn’t real. Eddie couldn’t be… he couldn't-- he isn’t.

Richie’s lips are quivering in fear but nothing leaves his lips besides a faint ‘Eds’. His heart is racing and his hands are numb as he can see the death begin to grow in Eddie’s eyes. Those eyes. The eyes he stared into every time he could, the eyes he saw in no one but Eddie, no one but Eds. The single man who he never forgot, deep down he could remember their lonely nights together, remember the time he denied girls for him, denied anyone but him. Anyone but his Eddie.

He closes his eyes for a moment. One moment.

But Eddie isn’t back in his view. He remains there.

An aching horror finds its way into his heart, tearing away at his hope, ripping the one thing he loved away from him. The only one he loved.

It was _real_.

“Eds…”


End file.
